Change Default Application

Stamp: 22 August 2008 | 2 Comments | Back to Previous Page

Common Mistake…

Most of the time, the contextual menu labelled Always Open With will be used in order to open file as default application. And this leads to mistake being made most of the time.

Why…?

When a file is set to always be opened with particular application, the change will only apply to that particular file. Let's say there are hundreds files of the same type, changes will be needed for all of those files, what a waste of time!

Solution: Use Info Pane

If the changes are to be made for every single files with the same type (same extension name), Get Info pane will be required. Here are the full and complete steps:

Select a file
Open Get Info pane of that file (keystrokes: Command-I)
Find section with name Open with: and choose appropriate application to open that type of file
Click on Change All… button
Finish! That application will now be set as current default application

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2 Comments

Hisham

Thanks for the tip. I use this method to set the default application, it works for a while then it reverts to the original application that was set before I changed. For example; I have the default Microsoft Word ".doc" opens in OpenOffice.org but I want it to open in Pages. I use your method to do so. It works for some time till I restart my computer. Open Office will return to be the default application for ".doc". Not only ".doc", this happen for ".qif" it's default is Preview and I want it to open in iBank.

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David

Thank you <-------> so much, I've been using Mac for a couple of months and this little thing struck me the most, thank you for this wonderfull little post !

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